Let me turn in our Bibles tonight to first Timothy, first
Timothy chapter 6 and we're going to get there in just a
second. But I'm going to kind of give
you a little bit of a run into what we started feels like a
long time ago now, but been a lot of Sunday nights between now
when when we started this lesson.
But if you remember the, the whole title of the message, if
you will, is cultivating contentment in a consumerist
culture. And I'm not going to take very
long to to review because you can always go back and watch
that message again. And we got a lot to try to cover
tonight. I don't even know how far I'm
going to get in this tonight, but we may, we may do another
one. These are very, very important
things, not just for those with kids.
It's very important for you to understand these things in your
own life, obviously #1 because we are the examples to our kids.
But #2 you need to get these things straightened out in your
own life. We all need to get these things
straightened out in our own life.
So just just by way of quick review, I gave you 3 myths when
it comes to the philosophy of this consumerist culture.
Myth #1 is that prosperity is a divine right.
It's not you go out and work for it.
You make something out of yourself and then you can be
prosperous, right #2 myth is it's my money.
I worked hard for it. So it's mine, right?
No, it's, it's, we're stewards, we're managers of the money that
God gave us #3 is that money is evil.
And that's not correct either. Money is not evil.
The love of money is the root of all evil, the Bible says.
And so you have to work you and, and you should work and you
should try to make them the, the, the most that you can and
be as successful as you possibly can within the right balance.
But then we said number one, that we should be modeling
contentment in our homes. We should be modeling
contentment in our homes. If we want to raise kids that
are content, we ought to be content.
And that's why I say this is for all of us, right?
It's important that our kids grow up and learn how to be
content, but it's important that we do the same thing too.
The Bible talks about that a lot.
Godliness with contentment is great gain, right?
And so this is not just something that we should be only
teaching our kids. It's something that we should be
doing ourselves. And I said #1 you model
contentment in the home by living below your means and #2
by providing for basic necessities.
And I think this is where we left off, because I don't
remember talking too much about this.
So I'm going to jump in right there.
There's a few things that I wanted to add to this anyway,
and then we'll move on from here.
But the Bible says this in first Timothy chapter 6 and verse #7
For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we
can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let
us be there with content. So if you have food and
clothing, you should be content. That's that's, that's a really
low bar, isn't it? It's a really low bar.
So what exactly do we need to be content according to this verse?
Well, the point here is not so much that we need only food and
clothing as much as it is contrasting contentment with
covetousness, the goal of life. The goal of life is not to amass
things, but to be able to meet our family's needs and to give
to others. Proverbs chapter 23.
You can turn to as many of these as you want to.
We're going to be jumping around a little bit, but Proverbs
chapter 23 and verse #4 the Bible says labor not to be rich.
Cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon
that which is not for riches? Certainly make themselves wings.
They fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
By the way, what's the purpose of being rich anyway?
What's the purpose of being rich?
Is it so you can say I'm rich? Is it so you can say I've got a
lot of money? Is it so you can say what I
mean? You can make a lot of money and
still not be rich, right? And I think that's probably the
way that it ought to be. If God is giving you all that
money, you hoarding it and having a bank account that is so
full of money that you can call yourself rich, you're probably
not stewarding what God gave you very well, right, because you're
hoarding it. I was talking to a pastor and he
actually just became a pastor. He's a very successful
businessman. And I won't tell you who it is,
but it's it's somebody that I was talking to and I was talking
to him about some of these different things with Belize.
And he said, he said we make a lot of money, but we don't have
a lot of money because we give a lot of it away.
And he wasn't saying it because he was trying to, you know, he
was trying to say, I don't have a lot of money that I can give
you for this belief thing right now, because we give it all
away. And I and I believe that's
exactly what God does want us to do with it, right?
Why does God give you a ton of money?
Is it so that you can put it all in your bank account so that you
can be very rich, so that you can die with $1,000,000, so that
you can, you know, pass it on down to the next generation?
Well, some of that is true, right?
And if you're just wasting it, if you're just throwing it away
on, on stupid stuff and buying really expensive fancy cars and,
and buying extravagant houses and all of those other things,
then yes, you're wasting the money that God gave you, right?
I do think the Bible does say that, that, that you should make
enough to pass down to the next generation.
There's nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, why do you
want to be rich, right? Why are you trying to amass all
of this money? And I'm just asking that in
general, I'm not, I'm not asking you in particular, right?
But I'm just saying you got to think about those things because
what is the purpose of making money?
What is the purpose of being rich?
What is the purpose of going out and working and having all these
things? Well, godliness with contentment
is great gain. So godliness without
contentment, I got to have another dollar, right?
That's not great gain, right? Great gain is when you have
godliness and you are content with what God gave you.
OK, so wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not riches?
Take wings, right? You could have $1,000,000 in
your bank account. Go get sick with cancer and see
how long that lasts, right? Takes wings and flies away,
right? Your house burns down, You got
to go replace the house. I mean, obviously there's
insurance and everything else, but but riches take wings.
There are things that just come up that make those things go
very quickly. So one of the ways that you help
cultivate contentment in the heart of your children is by
ensuring that you're going to provide for their basic needs.
In fact, look at the Bible says in the chapter before that if
you're still there in First Timothy 6, go to First Timothy
chapter 5 verse #8. But if any provide not for his
house and especially those for those of his own house, he hath
denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.
That's some pretty strong language.
Deny the faith and worse than an infidel.
If you don't provide for your house, especially the ones that
are in your own house. So let's look at the 55 basic
needs that your children have. Turn over to Proverbs 31 #1 is
shelter. Your kids need to have a roof
over their heads and a place to sleep.
Doesn't have to be a palace, but it should be a place to call
home, right? I grew up doing the bus ministry
and, and going and visiting kids and it was not uncommon at all
for them to come to church on Sunday.
And when you go back to visit them the following Saturday, the
house is completely empty. And you find out that they moved
three blocks over because they got kicked out of their house
because they weren't paying the rent and everything else.
And they moved everything over and they lived there for six
months. And the next thing you know,
they're in a different house and then they're in a different
house and then they're in a different state and then they
come back. It's just the way that a lot of
them lived. And that's not that's not
providing a place that your kids can call home.
And I get it. I understand that, that that
there are difficult circumstances and things like
that. They come up, but if you're
providing for your for your family, then you ought to
provide shelter. You ought to provide food.
Look what Proverbs 31 says about a virtuous woman.
She verse 30, chapter 31, verse 16, she considereth a field and
buyeth it with the fruit of her hands.
She planted the vineyard. Why she planted the vineyard?
Because she's providing for her house.
She's providing food, right? Clothing.
That's another one that's a basic need, shelter, food,
clothing. Now, by the way, having name
brand clothing is not a need, right?
Your kids don't have to look like they just walked out of a
magazine. OK, You can shop at Goodwill.
That's what we did all the way growing up.
I didn't I didn't have anything brand new for a long time, not
until I started buying my own stuff that I have anything brand
new. We got it new.
We got shoes that Payless, right?
I remember. Does anybody remember and, and
this is the dumbest thing, but does anybody remember the brand
Etonic? Man, I used to think those were
the coolest shoes in the world and I wanted a pair all the way
growing up. I mean, nobody's ever even heard
of Etonic, right? But they had thick bottoms and
they looked soft and they looked comfortable.
And mine were plastic. When I, when I smacked my shoes
in the ground, you can hear the plastic on the bottom of my
shoes. And I'm telling you, more than
once, more than once growing up, probably more than five times
growing up, the shoes that I had cracked all the way across the
bottom. That's how plastic they were a,
a crack right across the, the, the, the like the ball of my
feet to the point where I wrapped duct tape around it to
keep him from falling apart and to keep water from getting in.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
And, you know, we'd get a new pair of shoes at the beginning
of the school year. And it was such a big deal to
get a new pair of shoes that every time we came home, we
would ask our mom if we could sleep in those shoes because
they were brand new. I don't know if you ever did
that. We did, right.
We didn't have Nike. We didn't have all of those
things. We got Payless shoes and we got
Goodwill clothes. And you know what?
When I got into 7th grade, my dad said, I'm, I'm going to give
you a place to sleep. Obviously you have your bed and
all that kind of stuff. I'm going to put food on the
table. You want anything else, you're
paying for it. Guess what I learned how to do?
I shopped at Goodwill. I got my, I got my first suit
off of the racket Goodwill for $7.00.
I remember it and I wore that thing for for a couple years,
right? I used to buy all my ties in my
shoes and everything there. I learned how to be a good
steward of the money that I made because I didn't have a lot of
it, right? Education, it's another thing
that you should provide for your children, your kids.
Education is a necessity in the day that we live in now.
Not everybody has to go to college.
I think that's a myth that's been perpetuated over and over
and over and over again that if you don't have a college degree
and you're not $150,000 in debt by the time you graduate, that
you can't go anywhere in life. And what people are finding out
is that piece of paper hanging on the wall is not worth
$150,000, right? You can go and, and get a good
job in a trade somewhere and they'll pay you to, to let them
teach you how to do it and pay you really well to let them
teach you how to do it, right. There's a lot of other things
that you can do now. I think it's important that you
that you go on and get some higher education.
If you just get out of high school or don't even finish high
school and you drop out, that's that's not helping anything
either. But think beyond high school.
And in some cases, you know, you ought to be saving your money up
to be able to help your children a little bit with college.
Now, I don't think it's a great idea for you to pay for all of
college for them. They don't take it seriously,
right? I had to pay for my entire
college. Guess how many classes I failed
in college? 0 because I was paying for it,
right? Guess what I did during college?
I took it seriously. I studied, I worked hard because
I was paying for it. And if I failed a class, Oh
well, that'll pay for it. No, I was paying for it, right?
So I'm not saying that you can't help your children with college,
but I think they need to learn the value of their education,
right? It is something that you, this
is just true across the board. If you don't pay for it, you're
not going to value at the same way, right?
If you have to pay something for it, you're going to have you
have some skin in the game and you're going to value it.
Even if you only had to pay a little bit for it, you're going
to value it because you paid for some of it, right?
And so it's, it's important that that you budget, if you will,
for your kids education, but also teach them the value of
that by letting them pay for some of it or most of it, or in
my case, all of it, right? I mean, hey, I, I lived, I
survived, I, I paid for four years of college and by the time
I graduated, I had my entire bill paid off.
You know how much student debt I had when I got out of college?
0 right? Because I learned how to work
through College in order to pay for it.
And I, I was able to do it And, and I, and anybody can, you just
have to put your mind to it. But here's another one that I
think a lot of times we don't look at as a basic need, but it
is a basic need for our families.
Shelter, food, clothing, education.
But recreation, Recreation is a basic need for your family.
And you can do recreation. You can have family time very
inexpensively, especially when your kids are young and
especially if you're enthusiastic about what you're
doing. You don't have to.
You don't have to go to Disney World.
I've never been to Disney World in my life.
And honestly, I'll be honest with you, don't somebody go buy
me a ticket. I have no desire to go to Disney
World, all right. I've never been there in my
life. And if, if I if if somebody
throws me over the gate and I land in there, then fine, I'll
walk around in there for a few minutes.
But that's the only way that I'm going.
All right. But you don't have to spend
$1000 or $10,000 to go on some fancy vacation in order for your
kids to enjoy recreation. Go up to the mountains and hike
cost you 100 bucks for no cost. You it cost you a 50 bucks for
the entire year to get a pass. And you can go up there and hike
as much as you want on the Appalachian Trail and you can
you can make it as fun as you go.
Go bring your lunches up there. Go camp.
I doesn't cost anything to do those kind of things.
I'm not saying that you have to spend a lot of money, but it's a
great idea to plan a family budget that includes saving for
some of those extra special times as a family, right?
And I do think it's helpful to go on vacation.
Sometimes that does cost a little bit of money.
But you know, we've started doing that with our kids for for
Christmas instead of buying them all kinds of stuff that's going
to break that they're not even going to remember.
We do a trip, we do an activity and some of it's only been one
overnight or two nights somewhere or doing something
like that. You can make it as inexpensive
as possible, but but give them the experience rather than than
just throwing things at them, right?
And that's not just a gift for Christmas or whatever else.
Investing in recreation as a family tells your children that
that family time is important to you and that you want to make
some of the best memories together.
You know what I've learned? My kids are, they're growing up.
Jackson, 16, is not going to, he's not going to be in the home
very much longer. Alex and Riley are right behind
him. You know what I've learned?
You can't make memories with them when they're gone.
You can only make memories while they're at home, right?
And some of the memories that that we made growing up, we're
all in, in the house, right, playing foosball and darts and,
and, you know, throwing the football and all those kind of
things. Those are, those are things that
my dad did with us that because we had 10 kids, we didn't go on
vacation very much, right? We didn't go out to eat very
much. But I but, but I look back on my
time growing up and my dad spent time with us and I realized now
it didn't really cost a lot of money.
But at the same time, those were, those were things that we
enjoyed. And I remember them like they
were yesterday, 2530 years later, because my dad spent time
with us and put the effort into making it fun growing up.
You can't make memories when they're gone.
You have to make the memories now.
So well, I'll wait until I have a little bit more money and
then, and then when I have grandkids, then we'll take them
all. Probably not going to happen.
Their lives are going to get busy.
You don't know what, what, what happens if they end up in the
Philippines as missionaries and you can't take them somewhere?
What happens if they end up in Africa or Australia or someplace
where it's not very easy to go back and forth?
You can't just, you'll wish that you can spend money on them and
you're not going to be able to, right?
Or what happens if, God forbid, they die and you don't have the
opportunity to do anything with them, right?
It happens. It happens.
Make the memories while you have the opportunity to make the
memories. That's a necessity that your
children need. You want them to grow up in a
happy home. You want to you want them to
grow up remembering all of the good times that you had and all
the all the things that you did that were enjoyable.
And you want them to forget all the times that you got mad and
blew up, right? So you just go buy them a
vacation and they'll forget everything.
No, I'm just kidding. But at the same time, that's it.
That's something that's that's necessary.
So when it comes to providing for your family's needs,
remember that your children want you more than they want stuff.
They don't know it yet. Maybe they may not know it yet,
but they want you more than they want stuff.
And I look back and I don't hardly remember many of the
things that my dad bought us or my mom bought us.
I remember the stuff that we did together.
And I remember the time and I, and I've told you this before,
but one of the things that I remember the most is my dad had
his own business and he was busy.
He was, he was, he was constantly, you know, working
during the day. Now we were in school and
everything else. It wasn't like he was never
home. He was.
But, you know, we had a soccer game at 3 o'clock 3:30 in the
afternoon. And, you know, we're all warming
up on the field. That time goes down to 0.
We're ready to start. And there comes my dad walking
up the track from the parking lot.
And he, he was there. And I remember that.
I, I mean, I remember him being there for almost all of our
wrestling tournaments. I remember him being there for a
basketball game, you know, and I didn't realize it then, but
looking back on it now, that's what I value more than anything
else, is not the stuff that he gave me, but the time that he
spent with me, right? That's what your kids want.
Even even when they're asking for stuff, they need your time
more. So while you do need to do what
it takes to provide for their needs, you have to be cautious
about taking that extra, you know, overtime or the added jobs
just for discretionary money. Well, it's so nice to have this
extra money, right? But for what?
For what? For you to miss the time of your
kids growing up. Now, if you have to take it
because you absolutely have to have that money, then, you know,
don't let them go hungry. Just say, well, kids, sorry, but
we'll sit here around the table. There's nothing to eat tonight,
but we'll enjoy the time anyway, right?
We went through the White House of the Confederacy with, with
the pastors that were here and what do they call it a
starvation, starvation party or something like that.
During the war there was, I mean, they were, they were
struggling. There was no food.
There was no, there was nothing. There was everything was being
blockaded into the South. And so they had starvation
parties. You know what a starvation party
was at the White House? Everybody was there.
They had only, they called it a starvation dinner.
That's what they called it a starvation dinner.
No food, only drinks. And all the drinks were water
and the water was from the river.
Can you imagine that? Come to my party at the White
House. We've got water for you.
It's not clean, but it's from the river, you know, I mean, but
that's what they were doing. And that's that's what I'm
saying. That's not if you have to work
to be able to provide food for your family, then provide food
for your family. But what I am saying is that you
need to figure out the balance and make sure that you're taking
the time to spend that with your kids instead of, well, it sure
would be nice to have that extra, you know, 500 bucks this
month to go, you know, do whatever and you're gone and
you're not there for them. Careful budgeting, frugal living
can buy you quality time with your children, right?
You don't have to have that overtime.
Work the overtime when the kids are gone.
If you really need the money, if you really want the money, work,
work the overtime when the kids are gone.
If you want to teach contentment to your children, you have to
model it yourself in your home for your children to see.
But if they're going to learn to be content, they need to
understand the importance of working for something rather
than having it just given to them.
So that's number two. Then mentor workers in the home.
Turn over to Proverbs chapter 13.
Proverbs chapter 13 see the the entitlement mentality and that's
one of the myths is that you are entitled to all of this because
you live in America the entitlement mentality of a lot
of Americans runs absolutely contrary to contentment.
The attitudes start to take shape in in, in hearts, kids
hearts when they're very young, as they develop the expectations
that that everything in life is just handed to them.
And there's a balance because. I feel like pretty much
everybody wants their kids to have it better than they had it,
right? Ah, life without was rough
growing up. I want my kids to have more than
what I had or, you know, I had to.
I had to quit school at 15 and go to work because this and that
and I want my kids to have it better than I have it.
So you just give them everything that doesn't teach them.
Contentment doesn't help them. Now they don't have to quit
school and go to work at 15. If you have the opportunity to
let them stay in school and finish and everything else,
right, Give them some of those advantages, but don't spoil them
to the point where they just expect that everything's going
to land in their lap on a silver platter.
You know why America's in the condition that it's in?
Because kids graduate from high school at 18 and they've been
given everything up to that point.
Then they go to college and their parents pay the entire
college debt offer them for those four years.
And then they graduate and they're saying, well, look, mom
and dad have a really nice house and they they both drive really
nice cars and they have a lot of money.
So that's what I should have too.
So they go out and they buy a really nice house and they go
out and they buy really nice cars.
And then there's so deep in debt they can't ever get out of it
for the rest of their lives. But what they don't realize, it
took their parents 30 years to get to that point where they
have a really nice house and they drive really nice cars.
What they didn't see is that their parents were in a little
one bedroom, 600 square foot apartment for the first five
years and they drove a little beater that barely started and
barely got them from point A to point B.
And they worked to get to the point that they're in now.
But we've taught our children that this is what you can
expect. So when you graduate at 18,
we're going to pay for all of your college.
And when you graduate from college, everything's going to
be handed to you on a silver platter because this is what you
deserve. You're entitled to this.
You're an American, right? No, you're not entitled to it.
Start small like everybody did and work your way up there.
And you're doing your kids a disservice if you don't let them
start small. If you give them everything, OK,
you might have the money to be able to do it.
Even if you have the money to do it, it's not it's not helping
them to just give them everything on a silver platter,
Right. You know what, Shaq?
Shaquille O'Neal, one of his kids said something one day to
him and he was talking and he said, yeah, because we're rich.
And Shaq said, hang on a second, we're not rich.
I'm rich. Not we're, I'm rich.
You're going to work for what you have.
And, and you know what? Shaq is done with his kids.
He gives his kids a loan for a business.
He said I will loan you the money.
You're going to pay that money back.
If you make something out of yourself, then you'll have the
money to pay back. If you don't, then you're going
to be paying for it. And I'm not just going to hand
it to you on a silver platter, right?
I think it was one of these actors, Chinese guy that did all
the martial arts stuff, Jackie Chan, Jackie Chan.
He said, when I die, I'm not leaving my kids any of my money.
He said if they have learned to make something out of themselves
and they can make their money for themselves and they'll be
just fine, if they're not worth it, then I would have just
wasted my money by giving it to them and handed it to them on a
silver platter anyway. I mean, maybe I'd give my kid
some money, but at the same time, I think it's a great
philosophy. Go work for it, right?
Go earn it. So, because here's what the
Bible says in Proverbs chapter 13 and verse #4 The soul of the
sluggard desireth and hath nothing, but the soul of the
diligent shall be made fact. See, a wise parent is going to
teach their son or their daughter the value of hard work
and help their child understand the correlation between labor
and reward. You work, you get paid for it.
You work hard, you get paid more for it, right?
That's the that's the that's the benefit of it.
So couple things underneath this number one work is a means for
our provision turn over to keep your finger there in Proverbs
13, because I'm coming back to that in a second.
But first, second Timothy a second Thessalonians chapter 3,
2nd Thessalonians, chapter 3. I wanted to get farther than
this tonight. I don't think I'm going to I'll
finish up with this and then we'll I want to focus on the the
next part for a longer than just mentioning it and being done
with it. But we'll move it to next week.
Maybe work number 1 is a means for our provision.
You have to help your under your child understand that work, not
handouts, is the means for our provision.
Second Thessalonians, chapter 3, verse #10 For even when we were
with you this week, commanded you that if any would not work,
neither should he eat. If America followed this
principle, there would be no welfare system.
There would be no welfare system.
Now there are people who get down on their luck, so to speak.
There are people who struggle because things that are outside
of their control happened. They lost their job, their
whatever. Different things like that come
up, right? But that's where the church
comes in and is willing to help somebody out.
The problem is the welfare mentality has created so many
empty positions in workplaces, right?
Why should I work? Why should I work if I can just
sit at home and you're going to pay me to not work?
Where's the motivation in that? There's zero motivation, right?
But I can go buy drugs, I can go drink, I can smoke, I can do
whatever I want to, and I don't have to work.
Man, that sounded better all along, all the time, right?
I mean, that's the way they look at it.
So, so the welfare system creates the that you get
rewarded with no labor. So why would you, right?
But here's the thing, you may not be, you may not have your
kids on welfare, but you give them that same mentality when
you don't teach them that labor reward correlation, right?
Second Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 10 For even when we were
with you this, we commanded you that if we would not work,
neither should he eat. If any would not work, neither
should he eat. For we hear that there are some
which walk among you disorderly, working not at all.
But our busy bodies. Now them that are such we
command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with
quietness they work and eat their own bread.
This this is teaching us some pretty valuable principles about
work, right? Verse 10 makes it very clear
that work comes before provision.
You work and then you eat, right?
You work, you get, you get you can have you work, you get you
get food. Verse 11.
This is what teaches teaches us what happens when we don't work,
right? We become busy bodies.
We put we put our interest in other people's affairs.
That's what he says, right? There are some among you which
are walk among you disorderly working not at all, but are busy
bodies. They're not busy.
So they're busy and everybody else's business, right?
Teach your children to avoid that.
They need to be diligently working back over.
In Proverbs chapter 13, we read verse 4.
The soul of the slug or desireth and hath nothing, but the soul
of the diligence shall be made fat.
But look at verse #11 Wealth gotten by vanity shall be
diminished, but he that gathereth by labor shall
increase. So you got to teach your kids
that money just doesn't just appear via Dad's checkbook or
dad's credit card, right? Go out and spend whatever you
want. Just just, you know, whatever.
It's the result of somebody spending time and somebody
investing their their strength into earning it, right?
When you just hand it to your kids, they don't understand the
value of it. You worked for that money,
right? You had to earn it.
You went out there and spent your time and your effort and
your labor and your life to earn that money just to hand it to
them so they can go blow it on nothing, right?
That's a vital lesson for your children, not just because work
is a means for a provision, but because #2 work is ordained of
God. We tend to dread work and, and,
and what happens is by our example, we teach our kids to
dread work, right? But work is ordained by God.
It's a gift. And I don't, I don't, you don't
have to turn all the way back to Genesis chapter 2 unless you
want to. But one of the first
instructions that God gave to Adam in the Garden of Eden.
What's the work? Right?
Look, this was Genesis 2 verse 15.
This was before the fall. The Lord God took the man and
put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
That was the instruction to Adam before sin.
All right, I know you know. In other words, work is not the
result of sin, right? Work is not the result of sin.
Now we think about it that way. Oh, childbirth, you got to work
for your stuff. Well, no work.
Work was given us as something that was ordained by God, that
was supposed to be something that was a gift to us, the
ability to work and to do things right.
Some of the added difficulties to work are a result of the
fall, but work itself is a gift and and that's what leads to
success. In fact, diligence is the best
vehicle to success. Proverbs chapter 22 and verse
29. Seest thou a man diligent in his
business? He shall stand before kings.
He shall not, he shall not stand before mean men.
Let me give you 3 examples real quick.
Turn over to Genesis 37. I'm going to end with this.
There's some of the some of the young men in Scriptures who rose
to the top of their field by hard work.
God used it. Genesis chapter 37 and verse #13
And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock
in Shechem, come, and I will send thee unto them.
And he said to him, here am I Joseph, Joseph in Genesis
chapter 13. He was, he was working in the
fields, right? We get this idea many times that
Joseph would just handed everything on a silver platter
because he had the coat of many colors and he was the baby of
the family and all these other things.
But he was working. He was working and, and, and,
and Joseph was a dependable messenger for his father as
well. Turn over to First Samuel
chapter 3, First Samuel chapter 3, because not only do you have
Joseph, you have Samuel. Samuel worked in the Tabernacle
as a young child right from from a very early age he was working
the child Samuel verse number one, first Samuel 3 one and the
child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli and the word of
the Lord was precious in those days.
There was no open vision. He was working.
He worked in the in the in the service of God, right?
And there was a lot of work that was to be done.
But at five years old around there, he was brought to the to
the Tabernacle by his mother and he worked turn over to the first
Samuel 16. You're not too far from there.
Here's another one that I know that you're very familiar with.
This is the story of David. And I don't, I'm not going to
take time to read all of it. We're just going to read one
verse here in verse #11 Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all
thy children? And he said, there remains yet
the youngest. And behold, he keepeth the
sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, send
and fetch him, for we will not sit down until he come thither.
See, David cared for his father's sheep as a teenager.
And it's no wonder. It's no wonder that each of
these young men grew up to be men who were put into positions
of responsibility later in life. Joseph as the Prime Minister of
Egypt, Samuel as the spiritual leader of Israel, David as the
king of Israel, Right? All of those were young men who
had learned the value of work and they were not just thrown
into those positions because they were given a life of
privilege, right? They were, they were, God put
them into those positions because they had learned how to
work. They learned the value of of
their labor. You don't need, you don't begin
teaching your children diligence and the value of work when they
turn 18. If you wait until they're 18,
you've missed, you've missed out.
They're not going to be hard workers if you wait until
they're 18 years old, right? You hand them everything on a
silver platter. And then on their 18th birthday,
you sit them down, you say now you're 18 so you're going to
have to go work. They're going to say no, keep
handing it to me on a silver platter.
You've been doing that my whole life.
And that's what they're going to expect, right?
Which is why some 22 year old kid can walk into a his first
position in a job and he sits down and he demands all of his
pay and he demands the benefits and he demands this and he
demands that, right? Most of us when we were 22 years
old and sat down to try to get a job, we're like, please, Sir, I
don't care what it looks like. If you pay me $8 an hour, I'll
take it. Just give me a job, right?
But, but that's the way that it is.
We've trained our young people in America especially, right?
This is why they're out there demanding now I should get
$15.00 an hour to make a hamburger, right?
$15.00 an hour minimum wage. I mean, I know things have gone
up and, and things are more expensive, but the, the reason
why things are more expensive is because you got all these kids
that want a 15 dollar, $15.00 an hour minimum wage to flip
hamburgers, right? It would cost you $15.00 to, to
buy a hamburger because that's what they're paying them an
hour. Everything else has to go up
too, right? And, and, and you wonder why,
Oh, it's a great, it, it sounds great on paper.
Let's pay everybody $15. In fact, why don't we make the
minimum wage $30.00 an hour, right?
Fact. Let's just make it 50.
Why not? Then everybody can have all the
money they want and doesn't work that way.
Everything else goes up because you're paying $40.00 for a
hamburger at McDonald's because he wants $50.00 an hour to work,
right? And that's what's happened.
That's how you, you wonder why. I mean, obviously there's
economic things, but that's a lot of what it is, right?
You got all these justice warriors out there, there that
are, that are championing the cause of the underdog and want
everybody to have, you know, you know, all this, all this money
for, for doing a nothing job, right?
If you want to, if you want money, go make something out of
yourself. I'm not saying that you can't
work at McDonald's, right? But if that's your ambition is
to stay there for the rest of your life, then you should be
making $10.00 an hour for the rest of your life, right?
Go make something out of yourself.
We live in America. You have the opportunity to do
those things if you're willing to work, right?
But all that to say that you start teaching your kids when
they're 345 years old, when you let them help you clean out the
garage, right? Come help me.
I'm come help me, right? You're not helping me because
I'm doing all the work and you're actually more in the way
than you realize you are. But you need to learn how to
work, right? They ought to be assigned jobs
at home, right? They're the ones making the
messes anyway, right? They ought to know how to do
their laundry when they're 678 years old, and you can help them
do that, but they ought to learn how to do it, right?
Guess what they're not going to do?
I don't feel like putting that away.
I'm throwing in the hamper. Guess what happens when they're
the ones doing laundry? And maybe that's not so dirty
after all. Right, Let me put it away,
right? That's what that's what happens,
right? Oh, he dropped something on the
floor. Oh, well, Mom's going to sweep
the floor later. She'll pick it up.
No, if you're the one sweeping the floor, guess what you're
going to do? Hey, you drop some on the floor,
pick that up, right? They're going to be the one
saying that because they know that they're responsible for it,
right? That the, the trash is full.
They're the ones filling the trash can out.
Let them be the ones that empty it, right?
They're the ones making all the messages.
Let them clean the toilet in the bathroom that they use, right?
Let them be the ones that that that do all that kind of stuff.
Oh, I'm not saying that that you as parents turn them into
slaves, but they need to learn how to work.
They ought to make their beds. Their bedrooms ought to be
clean, right? Those that that's how you teach
them to work at a very young age and the way that a 5 year old
makes a bed is going to be very different than the way that you
make the bed. But if they're doing a 5 year
old's what what a 5 year old can do.
You praise him for it, right? You're doing what you can do
that looks really nice And then if it really looks bad, you just
go straighten it out, right? But show them, hey, this little
spot down here, right? Pull it down a little bit
further. You want to cover this up.
You want to tuck this in, whatever it happens to be,
right? Teach them how to work.
That's your job as a parent. And if you're going to make them
work, then you follow up and make sure that it's done right.
If they have the job of washing the clothes and they they're not
getting it done, you can't just go, oh, here he is again.
I told him to do it. Oh, well, let me do it.
No, let it build up until the point where they're like, I need
socks. Well, you should have washed
your clothes, right? You can either put on a dirty
pair or you don't wear socks today.
That's, that's on you, right? If you bail them out every time
that, that they, they didn't keep their responsibilities the
way that they should be and now they don't have what they need.
And you just, well, you spend all your money on bubble gum and
now you need 5 bucks for something.
All here is 5 bucks go, you know, whatever.
No, teach them the value of those things.
We'll talk about that a little bit more because that's what
we're going to talk about #3 and I'm not going to get into it
tonight, but managing stewardship habits in the home
teach them how to handle their money.
And it's important that you know how to handle your money if
you're going to teach your kids how to do it, too.
But mentor your children as workers, and they'll reap the
benefits of that the rest of their lives.
My uncle said this at the funeral.
My, my dad, my mom's, one of my mom's brothers, we were talking
and I don't even remember what he said.
He might have even said it actually in the funeral, but I
know he said it the night before.
And he said one of the things, one of the things that that all
of you guys, all 10 of you said, if there's anything about you,
you guys all know how to work. Your dad taught you guys how to
work. And he did because you know what
happened more than once? We hated our house with wood and
snow came covered the whole pile and we bring some wood.
We bring in three or four pieces for the night.
My dad would wake up at 2O clock in the morning to go put some
wood into the fireplace to keep the heat going.
And there was no wood in the house.
And guess what happened at 2O clock in the morning more than
once. Hey, get down here, no wood in
the house. Get out there and get wood. 2:30
in the morning, we're down there trudging through the snow,
hacking in with a shovel, trying to RIP up pieces that are buried
under under ice and bring them into the house.
But you know what? It didn't happen too many times
before. We were like, all right, you
know what? I'm getting wood in the house
before I go to bed. So I don't get woke up at 2:30
in the morning to go down there and find wood that's not there,
right? But my dad taught us how to work
and we worked hard and he taught us how to work hard.
And it's and it's, it's, it's a benefit that we've had for the
rest of our lives, right? You don't know how to work hard.
You you had a huge, huge, huge disadvantage in life.
You're going to expect that you can just do this and stuff's
going to land in it. And when the real world sees you
do that, they're going to take that hand and they're going to
slap you in the face with it, right?
Because that's not how the real world works.
Go work for it if you want it, right?
And if we could get back to that with our entire country and
completely get rid of the welfare system and everything
else, our country would be a whole lot more prosperous than
it is now. But that's what's happened is
we've trained people that you can just stick your hand out and
something will land in it, right?
I need a few more slaps in the face and a few more, few less,
you know, $20 bills in their hand when they stick it out.
And people will learn very quickly to go work, right?
It's important. And, and it's up to you as the
parents to teach that to your children in the home.
But how do you teach that to your kids in the home?
Got to model it yourself, right? You have to learn the balance of
work. What you don't want is for your
kids to think that work is everything either, right?
Dad was never home because he always worked.
That's not healthy either. It's not giving your kids what
they need. That's taking the time away from
them, spending it with you so you can go work.
So you got to find the balance. Everything is about finding the
right balance. Right, There's a ditch on both
sides of the road. Here's the guy that that's a
lazy bum and won't get out there and do anything.
Here's the guy that is worked so hard, he's a workaholic and he's
never home, right? It's not good to be in a ditch
on either side of the road, right?
You need to be in the middle of the road.
So work hard and provide for your family, but find that
balance to where you're actually home with your family and, and,
and enjoying the things that you're able to provide with your
work, right? So anyway, it's our
responsibility to mentor those young, the young kids in our
home, mainly by example, but also just by teaching them,
right? You can't just stick your hand
out and expect that something's going to land in it.
Go work for it, you want it, go work for it, you want it.
Save up your money, you want it, you can have it, go work for it,
right? I'll give you a little bit of
money toward it, but you're going to earn it too, right?
That's how we teach it to them. So what we'll talk about
managing stewardship in the home next week.
Actually, next week we have our fifth Sunday and Jackson's going
to preach for us. Next week will be the week after
that. All right, but let's pray.
Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.
Thank you for the opportunity that you've given us to be here
tonight. I pray that you'd help us have
strong families. God, I pray that you'd help us
to be parents. But but, but even more than
parents, it'd just be Christians that have a proper perspective
on work and that we would be hard workers for the cause of
Christ. And that that obviously
translates into being hard workers with getting the gospel
out translates into hard workers in the church and in the
ministries and everything else. And when we don't, it translates
that way as well. Lazy, lazy workers are going to
be lazy and ministries are going to be lazy and everything else
in their life as well. So I pray that you'd help us
all. Pray that you help us all the
work, work for the night is coming.
I pray that you'd help us to be laborers in our Christian lives,
be laborers in our physical lives, and that we we'd help our
children grow up to be profitable servants for you.
And again, we thank you for all that you do for us.
In Jesus name, Amen.